Texas A&M group plans bake sale protest

A conservative group at Texas A&M University plans to protest the arrival of a new campus diversity leader by holding a bake sale featuring different prices for cookies depending on race and gender.

A similar sale at Southern Methodist University was shut down by the school. But A&M officials say they plan no action regarding the bake sale by Young Conservatives of Texas A&M.

"This is a freedom of speech and freedom of expression issue, and the university obviously honors those provisions of the Constitution," Bill Kibler, interim vice president for student affairs, said in a statement quoted in Wednesday's editions of the Houston Chronicle. "Thus, no action is planned regarding the activity proposed by this particular group, provided it does not interfere with any ongoing university activities or violate any university rules or regulation."

The conservative group held a similar bake sale at Texas A&M at the beginning of this semester.

Organizers say white males at the new sale must pay $1 for a cookie, while the same kind of cookie will be sold to white females for 75 cents, to Hispanics for 50 cents and to blacks for 25 cents.

Young Conservatives' chairman, A&M senior Matthew Maddox, said the bake sale is being held to protest the creation of the new position of vice president of institutional assessment and diversity. James A. Anderson, the former vice provost for undergraduate affairs at North Carolina State University, was to assume the new post.